This invention relates to a system for reducing pedestrian impact injuries caused by motor vehicles striking a pedestrian, and particularly, to a hood latch release system.
Substantial advances have been made in recent years in the improvement of impact protection for motor vehicle occupants. Various strategies incorporating active and passive restraint systems have been implemented in motor vehicles. Sophisticated energy absorbing structures are designed into motor vehicles with an eye toward reducing occupant injuries.
While much progress has occurred in improving the safety of motor vehicle occupants, one segment of victims of motor vehicle collisions has been largely unaddressed; namely, pedestrians. Motor vehicle impacts with pedestrians remain a serious concern, taking the lives of many each year throughout the world and causing severe injuries.
Certain strategies are known to reduce the severity of pedestrian impacts. For example, it is known in the art to provide a motor vehicle with a front hood that raises a predetermined distance to provide for energy absorption in anticipation of a vehicle impact with a pedestrian. Pedestrian injuries can be reduced in this manner since typically, the pedestrian is struck in the lower torso area by the vehicle front end, and their upper body strikes the hood. Lifting the rear edge of the hood enhances its energy absorption characteristics. The current de facto standard for such hood raising is that the hood is to be raised within a thirty millisecond time period. Where such active hood lifting is incorporated into a vehicle, the vehicle's hood has a pair of hinges attached to the rear edge of the hood and the hood has at least one releasable hood latch mounted along the front edge of the engine compartment. To gain access to the vehicle's engine compartment, such hoods are opened by releasing the front mounted hood latch and lifting the hood from the front edge of the hood. Lifting the front of the hood causes the hood to rotate about an axis generally positioned so as to run through or near the rear mounted hinges. In vehicles equipped with hood assemblies of the type previously described, because the rear edge of the hood is raised in an active hood lifting scenario, the front mounted hood latch need not be released in order to activate an active hood lifting system.
There are vehicles such as many produced by the Jaguar Motor Company, for example, where access to the vehicle's engine compartment is provided by lifting and opening the vehicle hood from the rear edge of the hood. In such cases, the hood has a pair of hinges mounted adjacent to the front edge of the hood and there is at least one releasable latch mounted at near the rear edge of the hood. If such a vehicle is equipped with a rear opening hood is to move through a pedestrian protecting hood lifting scenario, not only must the hood latch be released before the hood can be actuated, but also such release must be performed automatically and very rapidly.
The present invention provides a hood latch release system for a motor vehicle for providing impact protection for pedestrians. This system includes an automatically operating fast-acting hood latch release apparatus. Preferably, the hood latch release cooperates with a hood lifting device to raise the rear edge of the hood.
Additional benefits and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art to which the present invention relates from the subsequent description of the preferred embodiment and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.